Game of Thrones: Episode 1 – Iron From Ice

Game of Thrones is the latest episodic title from Telltale Games. As has been the case lately, Game of Thrones isn’t really an adventure; it’s more of an interactive movie, where you control one of the characters of the story, making some decisions here and there that can impact how the game plays out, and guiding your character through frequent action sequences. This review is for the first episode of the series, “Iron from Ice.” There are expected to be six episodes in all.

As the game opens up, you are in control of Gared Tuttle, a squire to House Forrester. You’re with your lord and a retinue at the Twins — on the night of the Red Wedding. If you’re familiar with George R. R. Martin’s books or the HBO series based on them, then you know that the Red Wedding (or, really, any wedding-related activity) isn’t a great place to be, and pretty soon you’re on your own running for your life. Later, you take control of other members of House Forrester, including Mira Forrester, who is a handmaiden to Lady Margaery in the Red Keep, and teenager Ethan Forrester, who suddenly finds himself to be the new lord of the House.

Controlling three characters is interesting. It allows the game to jump around to different places, and it gives the story more scope. It also allows famous characters like Cersei and Tyrion Lannister and Ramsay Bolton to make appearances. But on the downside, the first episode is only a couple of hours long, and that means it doesn’t have time to introduce the characters and do much else. The episode has a lot of set-up but not much payoff.

Game of Thrones is played like just about every other Telltale game. You move your character around with the WASD keys, and you select interactive objects (including people) with the mouse. When you’re in conversation, your responses are almost always timed, and you have to select your answers with the mouse. During action sequences, the WASD keys allow you to dodge in different directions (so far at least, the game is more about avoiding sword fights than participating in them), and you use the Q and E keys to grapple with people. You can also pick up inventory objects and use them in places — or at least I think so. Inventory management wasn’t needed in Episode 1. The good news is, if you’ve played any other Telltale games, then you should be able to jump right into Game of Thrones without any problems.

Since Game of Thrones doesn’t look like it’s going to have any puzzles (there weren’t any in the first episode at least), that means the quality of the gameplay is going to depend entirely on how interesting and involving the story is — and that’s always tough to tell after just one episode. I was surprised that Game of Thrones put itself as “close” to the books as it did (and without any background material to explain who the Starks are or what the Wall is or anything like that; if you’re not familiar with the setting then you’re going to be confused). I think Cyanide Studios’ Game of Thrones RPG had a better idea when they put their game in Westeros but more on the periphery of the books. That allowed them to create new villains and heroes whose outcome isn’t known. In Telltale’s Game of Thrones, we witness Cersei traumatizing a helpless girl and Ramsay toying with people — stuff we’ve seen before. Ramsay is also the main villain in the first episode, but we know that nothing is going to happen to him as a result of his actions, which is a little annoying.

If you’ve played Telltale’s other games, then Game of Thrones is about what you should expect. The story holds promise, the voice acting is very good (especially with several actors from HBO’s Game of Thrones lending their talents to the game), the graphics are good but not great (characters are modeled after their HBO counterparts, but they seemed a little wooden to me), and the decisions you make have at best a minor impact on the game (at one point Ethan spends a lot of time deciding how he should greet Ramsay, and then when the time comes, everybody ignores his decisions). I didn’t particularly love the first episode of the game, but Telltale has a good track record, and so I’m cautiously optimistic that the game as a whole will turn out well.

Reviewed By: Steven Carter
Publisher: Telltale Games
Rating: 75%

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This review is based on a digital copy of Game of Thrones: Episode 1 – Iron From Ice for the PC provided by Telltale Games.